


Losing Your Way

by entanglednow



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Disturbing Themes, Gen, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-11
Updated: 2008-03-11
Packaged: 2017-10-31 08:06:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"I want to think someone would come for me -" Peter shakes his head, one quick movement. "I need to think someone would come for me."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Losing Your Way

Peter didn't find out about Adam for two months. He had more important things to worry about.

His brother died, and then his brother came back, and though the first was the more terrible it was the second which proved to be complicated. Not actually bringing him back, because Claire was the same as Adam in all the ways that mattered. No, it was engineering his return from the dead carefully enough that it wasn't a resurrection splashed across the morning news. Nathan never finished his public address. It was impossible to feign recovery from bullet wounds when your chest was unmarked. It was easier to claim a bullet proof vest, to rearrange a few memories. To say as little as possible past the necessary, and then withdraw.

Staying in the glare of the public eye would have raised too many questions, questions that couldn't be answered without peeling back the lid on everything, and they'd decided not to do that yet, to postpone that, until they were certain they could. Until their enemies had faces, and if they looked long enough, and hard enough, in the right direction it was impossible to hide. So instead Nathan seethed quietly, and he did impotent fury like no one else.

But after that, when Peter did find out where exactly Adam was - there's only so long you can leave a man buried alive before your own nightmares started to eat at you.

Peter wakes up two nights in a row absolutely certain that he'd been buried in Adam's place. It took him less than a week for the idea of it maybe being a fitting punishment to become a creeping realisation that Adam had been buried alive for almost two months. And if Adam was so easy to judge after four hundred years, what was to stop Peter from being judged in the same way? What were the rules when you owned power that made you impossibly different from everyone else, who made the rules then? When you broke...did you deserve to be helped like other people. Or punished in ways ordinary people could never understand. In ways ordinary people would call monstrous.

Monster or not, that was a sort of cruelty that Peter didn't want to be a part of. He'd been all the way to the edge before and looked over, and he'd like more than anything else to say he'd never been tempted. But Adam hadn't been left to die, he'd been left to live and that was worse.

***  


  


The third time Peter has the dream is one time too many. He heads downstairs, finds Nathan in the kitchen.

"I have to dig him up," Peter says flatly.

Nathan looks at him over his coffee for a long moment, takes a sip, then raises an eyebrow at him.

"Why?"

"He's buried alive," Peter says quietly, and that's all the explanation there need be. It took him too long to realise that. "I can't leave someone like that, no matter what they've done." He's not pleading anymore, he's not asking Nathan, he's warning him. But even after everything he's still afraid of a no. "I want to think someone would come for me -" Peter shakes his head, one quick movement. "I _need_ to think someone would come for me."

Nathan sets his coffee down, all half expression and consideration.

"You know what you're digging up?"

"Yes," Peter says carefully. "I know what I'm digging up."

"And if you have to kill him." Nathan's voice is quiet but brutally firm. Peter's knuckles whiten round the edge of the counter.

"I can do that too." Peter hopes he's right. He really hopes he's right.

Nathan tips his head to the side, and Peter knows him well enough to wait for the yes.

***

The cemetery is cold, bitterly cold, which seems ridiculously appropriate, considering they're here to unearth the dead. No, that wasn't right, they were here to unearth the living.

Nathan walks beside him, silent save for the occasional exhale, which produces a plume of warm air, and the faintest sigh. Peter can't help but imagine the sigh manages to be disapproving. They owe each other a lot of things, and Peter thinks it's finally easier to just follow without questions when they ask each other for favours, rather than to hash it all out where it will be complicated, where they'll be forced to admit the things they've done, the things that they _would_ have done.

Though Nathan did earlier stoop to complaining about what the graveyard was going to do to his shoes.

Peter spots the grave ahead of them, though he's not sure if you could call it a grave. It's more of a prison, or a tomb. It looks like nothing, just flat ground and still grass. Nathan eyes him over the collar of his coat, hands shoved in his pockets.

"This isn't one of your better ideas," he says quietly.

"Nathan -"

"I know, just get it done." Nathan looks away, but it's not dismissive, he's watching, he's watching the dark. Looking out for random interruptions, though with Peter's powers there's really no need, no need at all.

Peter thinks Nathan will still keep trying to look after him, even if he absorbs enough power to rip the world in two. Nathan has rather selective blind spots, and Peter finally understands what enormous weaknesses they are. Which is why he's determined to cover them himself. For all Peter's power he's brought a shovel. There's a sort of grim humour to that that he appreciates for a second. Life and its practicalities prove damn hard to shake off.

Or maybe it's a fear that if he starts to believe he doesn't need things it's only so far to not needing other things, rules, morals, people, and he's seen where that leads. So he has the shovel, though he doesn't need it, but he'll use it anyway. He thinks maybe killing Adam may be the only option in the end, if it's even possible. But that has to be better than staying underground, than living in a box.

They weave their way across the grass, until they find the bare space between two graves, the bare space Peter knows is where Hiro buried Adam Monroe alive. But there's a problem. The ground is wrong, it's flat, undisturbed, hard, untidy. Adam hasn't been underground for two months. Peter assumed Hiro had buried him when he disappeared, assumed that the timeline of events was a line, and not, as Hiro could quite easily make it, a curve.

Adam's been buried alive for much longer than two months.

Peter swallows and shakes his head.

"Nathan?"

"What?"

Instead of answering he slams the shovel into the ground, dragging great piles of earth up and flinging them to the side. The hole grows under his intensity, Nathan standing on the edge, hands in his pockets, coat hem drifting ever so slightly every time the wind decides to pick up. The pile of soil beside the grave grows as Peter sinks. Nathan doesn't offer to help, this is something Peter needs to do, and Nathan doesn't have to be told that. The fact that he's here, the fact that he would hollow out the ground if Peter asked, that's more than enough. Peter doesn't think Nathan's coat would survive the adventure.

"I don't know what he's going to be like," Peter says simply. "I don't even know if he's going to be sane when he comes out. He's been here longer than we thought and -"

The shovel hits something solid, something that isn't dirt, and Nathan grunts pointedly.

Peter starts clearing off the top of the coffin. "But it's Adam, so he could just be really, really pissed off."

The lid looks unremarkable, a dull grey curve that's so familiar in shape that Peter is smoothing the dirt aside without seeing it. Nathan comes to the edge of the grave, mud trickling down past the edges of his shoes. He honestly doesn't know what Adam's going to do. Peter grips the edge of the lid, pulls.

It comes open surprisingly easy under the pressure of his fingers.

Swings up.

The first thing Peter does is try not to throw up. Until the back of his throat stings, and there's just the desperate, _absolutely desperate_ need to breathe.

"Jesus fucking christ," Nathan says bitterly, then shuts his mouth and turns away.

The coffin is a mess, wooden splinters and shards coat the insides and the insides are...a human being cannot live inside a coffin.

It looks like the inside of hell. It _smells_ like the inside of hell.

"Oh my god," Peter says weakly, and speaking makes him retch again, makes him recoil far enough that he doesn't feel like he's inhaling rot with every breath. There are no words. Peter doesn't want to get closer, he wants to crawl away across the grass, and dry heave until his eyes water. He hears Nathan step back, hears him inhale cold air and cough sharply. Peter forces himself, _forces himself_ to reach out a hand. Adam's skin is freezing, but there's a pulse. His eyes are shut, but he's alive, though he isn't reacting to either of them, he isn't reacting to anything at all.

"Adam?" Peter tries. "Adam."

There's no clean skin to grip, and after a frustrated pause Peter stops looking for any, he loops a hand round a slim, tacky wrist and very carefully pulls Adam out of the rotting mess he's been laying in. There's a dull crack, deep and horrible and Adam makes a noise that at least confirms he's still there somewhere, it's low and animal, and other than that he doesn't react at all. Peter clenches his teeth around what wants to be some sort of horrified noise, he knows if he doesn't hold it, it won't be alone.

"Nathan, help me," Peter says quietly, and it comes out thin and desperate. Nathan grits his teeth and offers a hand, then two, and together they haul what's left of Adam out of the ground.

***

The ride home is silent, Nathan drives slowly, mouth a thin, hard line, and Peter has almost no memory of the trip.

The car will probably have to be burned.

There's nowhere else to take him, nowhere they know well enough. Getting him to the bathroom wrecks both the front door and three carpets, a trail of ruin from the car to the stark white tiles. Adam's easy enough to pick up, he may be layered in filth, but he weighs nothing like what he should. He's reduced in the most basic of senses, and fragile in a way that makes Peter aware of every place he holds him. His skin is drawn over his bones tightly enough that Peter knows even the slightest pressure will bruise, and though the marks won't even have a chance to bloom it still makes a difference. Peter feels like he could shatter him if he squeezes too hard. He holds his breath when he lifts him, jerks his head away when Adam's head threatens to roll towards his own.

He slithers out of Peter's hold into the tub, sharp bones thudding where they land and though Peter sways away the air he drags in is still too thick, rank. He coughs, leans over and turns the water on. There are layers on top of layers, some long dried, and the bottom of the bath swirls dark, thick and rusty where it pools under Adam's folded limbs, under the tangle of his hair.

Peter leans down very carefully, and puts his hands on wet skin.

Adam stiffens the moment Peter touches him, flings his head back hard enough to send him sprawling on the bathroom floor. Then he starts screaming like a banshee. He tries to back-pedal in the small space, ends up smearing red and black across the tiles. By the time Peter gets to his knees, hands reaching for Adam's arms the spray has already been redirected and everything, _everything_ is soaking wet.

There's no strength to Adam at all, he's all sharpness and panic, slipping on the enamel of the bath, all skid of thin legs and desperate squeaking slide of fingers. His eyes are open, but they're flat, skidding wildly from side to side, and Peter is almost certain that whatever he's seeing it's not this room, or them.

"Adam?" He's trying to escape both Peter and the fall of water, recoiling from every touch of fingers. Blind panic is ensuring that occasionally a hand, or elbow, catches Peter hard enough to spatter blood across the edge of the bath. "Adam!" It would be funny if it wasn't so damn terrifying, and for all his extra strength Peter can't hold him. He's soaking and most of his clothes tear like they're rotten, and he's slippery underneath, slippery and he smells like rot and old death and, Jesus, worse things.

His nails are literally clawing open the skin on Peter's arms, and it fucking hurts and there's fresh blood everywhere.

"Nathan." It's a hiss of desperation that can't help but be panicked. "Nathan!"

Nathan's fist slams into Adam's face hard enough to send him back a foot, his head smacks into the tiles, leaving a splatter of red, then he slithers down in one movement, silent and utterly still.

"Jesus." Peter's breathing too hard, shocked at the sudden silence.

Nathan's obviously expecting some sort of protest, but instead Peter just nods shakily. He lifts the scissors off of the sink and starts cutting his clothes away. In most cases he doesn't need them, the material is rotten, and caked in old blood and filth. Peter already feels like he's choking on it again.

Nathan has moved to stand by the door.

"I'm gonna need some bags or something," Peter says at last. Nathan slips out of the door without a word. For one taut second Peter wishes desperately that he could leave too. Then he leans down and maneuvers Adam under the spray, searches for something he thinks might just drag Adam's skin clean, brush, sponge, bathroom cleaner. Something quick, something that will _work_. Adam's skin grows back after all. It's the wrong thing to think, and Peter has to lean his head against the bath for a second, breathe through his mouth until the urge to heave goes away.

It's impossible to be quick and gentle, impossible to be quick and methodical, but Peter can care later, when he can breathe properly again. When Adam looks like he should be something alive again. Peter's pretty wet, and none too clean smelling himself by the time he's finished. The bath isn't designed for this sort of arrangement. But Adam's clean at least, clean and too thin, all hollowed out lines and much longer hair, the hair more than anything else gives a better clue about exactly how long Adam's been in the ground. It falls past his eyes, a drag of dark blond, soaking wet, edges trailing the curve of his nose, all the way to his jaw.

Peter touches the strand, pulls it as far down as it will go and swallows.

The last time he saw Adam his hair was as short as his own.

It's a year, or more, more than a year, and the thought is just too much for him to think about. He can't even imagine, he doesn't want to imagine. So he doesn't, he leaves it, leaves it alone in the back of his head, where it can't make him feel dizzy with how horrific it is. Peter, thankfully, has some experience shaving other people. He can get it done quickly enough that Adam stays out until he's dumping everything in the trash. Though when he does come back it's not loud, he just tips his face against the cold wet line of the bath, into the trail of warm water, breathing in quiet shallow lines, back trembling.

The bathroom door opens and Nathan slips back inside bringing cold air and plastic. He turns his nose up at the smell while Peter dumps what's left of Adam's clothes.

"He doesn't look much better."

"He hasn't eaten for more than a year," Peter says quietly. "He's been locked in a box." Peter leans in and turns the water off, then folds his arms round Adam's chest.

"Could you -?"

Nathan bends, catches Adam's waist and hauls him up, soaking his suit all the way through. He pulls a face when Adam's head rolls, wet hair pressed into his cheek.

He pulls a face but doesn't jerk away, saves the look for Peter.

"Take that out." Nathan nudges the bags with a shoe. "I'll get him upstairs and put him in something of yours."

"Well he'd fall straight out of anything of yours." Peter pauses. "Will you be ok?"

"If he so much as twitches I'll drop him down the stairs," Nathan says simply, and it's not an attempt to lighten the moment, it's the absolute truth.

Peter's surprised to discover that he finds it comforting.

He sighs, hefts the bags and slips out of the bathroom.

***

  


It's cold outside, cold and damp, and the clean air is a shock that has him swallowing raggedly for a second.

He stops, drops everything in his hands and presses them against the wall. He's breathing like he might fall apart, or throw up, and he thinks if he lets the whole night catch up to him right here then he just might. But he can't. He can't do that here, can't do that now. He wants to get this done first, wants to _wash this off_

His eyes move sideways and there's a long smear of blood on the edge of his bicep. He's not sure if it's his or Adam's. He knows it can't be the only stain on him but it's the only one he can see. He swallows, rubs it with the sleeve of his t-shirt until it's gone. Then he shuts his eyes.

"How did you do that Hiro...how in God's name could you do that?" He concentrates on one breath after the next, on letting it fall free and not whistling out in snatches. What was he doing? What on earth was he doing? He has enough problems already, they have enough problems. And Adam is, after all, the man who'd manipulated him into helping him carry out his own horrific crusade, a crusade that would have doomed everyone.

But no one else had known, and Peter honestly doesn't know whether anyone else would have bothered to dig him up. So what else could he have done? Leaving him in the ground was never an option. Leaving him in the ground and knowing would have been a thousand times worse.

***

Adam is completely still in Peter's old bed, laying like he's still buried, arms at his sides like they've fallen there. The sheets do nothing to give him weight, if anything they make him look smaller and that's something Peter has experience with, something he's never gotten used to, no matter how many people he's seen fade to nothing under clean white sheets.

His hair is leaving damp spots and trails on the pillow, spread out in strange directions, and it makes him look impossibly young. But the narrow, starved lines of his face give him a breakable quality. Adam's clean now, as clean as they could make him, his skin now an unpleasant almost translucent white that's nothing close to healthy. The ability to heal anything. Adam better hope that's true. Peter's hands fold round the end of the bed. Or perhaps not, depending on how much of him is left after spending more than a year in a box.

The room is completely silent. From this position it's almost as if Adam isn't breathing at all. Peter is compelled to lean forward, to hold his own and try to catch - _yes_. Adam _is_ breathing, impossibly slowly, shallow, it's the least amount of effort needed to stay alive, and every breath is utterly silent. Peter slowly leans back, relaxes his hands and the illusion of death steals back over him. He has no idea how long Adam is going to lay there, he's not dead...Peter doesn't even think he's asleep, he's just not there.

He's half afraid to leave the room, not because of what he thinks Adam might do, but to make sure there's something there, to make sure that something impossible hasn't been hollowed out completely.

***

  


"Do you think I did the wrong thing?" Peter asks quietly. He's sat in a chair in the study, hands held loosely over his knees.

"I think you did a stupid thing," Nathan says carefully.

Peter has to swallow something furious. Nathan isn't the one fighting him here. No one's fighting him, his own skin is crawling and he feels sick and adrenaline is still making his pulse too fast and too loud. But no one's fighting. It makes it worse.

"Do you think I should have left him there?"

Nathan's mouth pulls sharply into a thin line.

"No, Jesus, no you shouldn't have left him there. No one deserves to be left like that, no one." Nathan pours himself a glass of Scotch, ridiculously generous, but considering the night they've had it's probably fair.

Peter holds his hand out. Nathan eyes him for just a second, pours a second glass and passes it to him. It's vile and it stings all the way down but if nothing else it gives Peter something to hold, something to touch.

"So what do I do?"

"That depends," Nathan says carefully.

Peter pauses with his glass half raised.

"On what?"

"He's been in the ground a long time. He might not have come back all the way."

"You think he might be crazy?"

Nathan finishes his drink in one long swallow. "God knows."

"My mind fixed itself," Peter says carefully. "When I couldn't remember, it fixed itself."

"You were missing parts of your memory. You said thinking about us brought them back, regrew them or something."

"Yeah."

"Adam's not missing anything, he's just broken."

"Broken can be fixed."

"And why do you seem to think that's always your job?" Nathan's not angry this time, just curious.

Peter shakes his head.

"I let him into the vault Nathan. I'm the reason there was ever a threat in the first place."

"You would never have done what Hiro did, never."

"Nathan I've done bad things." Peter's voice is quiet, but it's level.

"Not like that, you don't burn like that Peter, you lash out quick and hot you don't smolder, you don't have that sort of anger, the sort that burns for years. You need that for something like that. You need determination."

"That sounds a lot like you." It's not an accusation, just an observation.

"I might have been able to do something like that, before. It would have eaten away at me, but I would have done it."

"And now?"

Nathan swallows, turns and refills his glass. He does it slowly, methodically.

"I'm going to be dreaming about that for fucking years," he says bitterly.

Peter runs a hand over his eyes, he's tired but the very last thing he wants to do is lay in bed, in the dark.

"Do you really think he's been down there more than a year?" Peter asks carefully.

Nathan shakes his head roughly, like he doesn't want to talk about, like he doesn't want to even think about it.

"Yeah," he says at last.

Peter drags his hands over his face and makes a noise into them that means nothing at all, but perfectly conveys the impossible horror.

"When he wakes up -" Peter stops, swallows, because he doesn't know, God help him, he has no idea what Adam will be - what Adam will be when he wakes up.

"Are you certain he _will_ wake up," Nathan says into the silence.

Peter can't answer that because he isn't, he isn't at all.

***

  


Adam's eyes are still open, he's staring at the ceiling, he's been staring at the ceiling for hours, and before that he was just laying there for hours, with his eyes closed. Nothing changes, nothing at all. Peter's wandered the room twice, sat on the bed, called his name, called his name God knows how many times. He's reached out and touched his skin, clean and half warm where it rests on the sheets, clean and warm and alive, but it doesn't move. It doesn't so much as twitch.

Since the bathroom there's been no sign that Adam knows, or cares, where he is.

The room's dark, Nathan drew the curtains when he brought Adam up here, and Peter has left them drawn ever since. That was two nights ago. The curtains are heavy enough to keep out the sunlight but it still has to be an improvement on total darkness. Peter doesn't know what a year of total darkness could do to a person. A year of nothing, of living in a box hearing nothing but your own breathing, your own muffled screaming, and God he must have screamed until - Peter stands up, does another slow circuit of the room.

It's no different than it's been every other time, he walks to the window, dragging the edge of the curtain aside and looking out. It's something other than sitting in the damn chair, watching Adam take up space.

Peter's always drawn back to the bed eventually though, drawn back close enough that he can make sure Adam is still breathing, close enough to lay his hand against a wrist, or the back of Adam's hand, and make sure he's not cold as death. Because Adam looks anything but immortal like this. There's not a scratch on him, and for the very first time that feels wrong. Like there should be something to see, something Peter can touch, something to _fix_.

Then he usually goes back to the chair, sits there and accomplishes nothing.

Peter's still at the stage where he expects something, a twitch under his fingers a flicker of eye movement, something. Peter doesn't give up easily. Though Adam hasn't given him anything. He just stares, like he's completely blind.

Peter leans over and opens the drawer beside the bed, rifles through it, shifting a collection of random debris out of the way. He finds a penlight that has rolled all the way to the back, scoops it up. Adam doesn't react at all when Peter tips his head to the side, though he knows his fingers are cold. He shines the light in Adam's left eye and the pupil contracts obediently. The right eye does the same, though it's the only part of Adam that does anything.

He holds his head there for a moment, trying to gage something, anything, from that flat expression. He can just feel the vibration of air where Adam is breathing against the side of his hand.

Peter doesn't ask where Adam is. At the moment he can't think about it. He's still torn about whether to hook up an IV. Adam is alive, he's been alive for a year with no nutrients at all. In fact Peter can only assume he's spent most of the time starving to death, choking to death or drowning in his own blood. Filling his body full of anything at this point, Peter honestly doesn't know if it will do more harm than good. If it will bring him back before he's ready. But letting him lay there and starve goes against everything Peter has ever believed.

He hates the fact that he doesn't know what to do.

***  


  


"He's a vegetable," Nathan says flatly, he doesn't look up at Peter, throwing his signature across a piece of paper that's impossible to read upside down across the kitchen.

Peter shakes his head, even though Nathan can't see. "He's not, he's there somewhere, he has to be."

Nathan's head does tilt then, just a fraction, enough for his eyes to fix Peter from across the room.

"You have to at least face the possibility that he isn't coming back."

"It's only been four days," Peter protests.

"He's not there," Nathan says quietly.

"What about the bathroom?"

"The last gasp of humanity," Nathan suggests. "And none too civilised at that, judging by the way he tried to tear the skin off your arm."

The words sting in a way Peter can't explain, he was there, he remembers, and more than anything he remembers that there was no fury there, just the sort of panic that still makes him feel cold all the way through. Peter swallows the flash of anger that rises, but the words come out clipped and tight.

"Why are you so insistent that he's not coming back?"

"Because I saw the wreck we dragged out of the ground."

Saying it makes Peter see it again, and he doesn't want to, because it doesn't help, it just makes everything worse.

"I know, I saw it too, but you don't know him -"

"Neither do you," Nathan protests. "Not really." Peter wants to protest that he does, but he knows it's not true. He doesn't know Adam, he doesn't even know his real name, or where he's from, or any of what really happened between him and Hiro...in the past. But Peter can't think about Hiro either, can't think about the when or the why. He can't make it personal. Though he thinks it's sliding closer every second.

He pushes himself away from the side, stares at Nathan across the counter and Nathan doesn't look away. Doesn't move, he's standing almost completely straight, hands slipped into his pockets. Peter's torn between wanting to shake him, wanting to demand that he react to this, damn it, and wanting, _desperately wanting_ some of that control for himself.

"I know he's four hundred years old," Peter says quietly.

Nathan nods, unsurprised, unimpressed.

"And he spent one of them in a box six feet underground, have you ever read anything about experiments into solitary confinement, into sensory deprivation?"

"He's not like other people, he's stronger than other people."

"No one's that strong," Nathan says honestly and Peter thinks he might just be right.

But accepting that is - they haven't even really _tried_. It's only been days, Adam was in jail for thirty years.

"His brain's been starved of oxygen," Peter offers. "Maybe he just needs a little longer."

"After a year spent choking on his own breath I'd imagine oxygen is the last thing he wants," Nathan says quietly.

"Jesus." All the fight goes out of Peter in one word. He tips his head forward into his hands, presses his fingers against his forehead. He feels like he's not doing enough, like he's not doing anything but pacing, and waiting, and it's like he can't draw a whole breath. "I just need to do something, I feel so damn useless." The last word rings around the kitchen, and Peter would very much like to kick something but there's nothing in reach.

"What about Mohinder?" Nathan slides his hands out of his pockets, lays them behind him on the side, and it's a more relaxed pose. It's a 'willing to be convinced' pose. Choosing to have faith in Peter when he doesn't deserve it. When he's losing faith in his own ability to do anything, for all his powers.

He exhales, shakes his head. 

"He's a geneticist I don't think he's going to be much help, I'm not sure he would help. He's not...he's not the same."

Nathan gives him a look, the one that says 'which of us are' but there's another conversation entirely.

"Besides there's not actually anything wrong with Adam, and the fact that he can heal, the fact that he can heal _everything_ is the only reason he's still here."

"Not completely here, in a coma here maybe."

"He's not in a coma," Peter says roughly. "He's awake, he's just choosing not to be here." And to be brutally honest Peter can't blame him. What he thought he had to come back to, what he must have come back to a thousand times...because a lot of the blood had been fresh.

Peter has an unshakable, creeping feeling that Adam _will_ be back eventually. But in what state, and for how long, he doesn't have a clue. He just needs to think of something, some way to reach him. He feels slightly sick just thinking about it.

"If I can get inside his head -"

Nathan sways forward and catches his wrist, catches it and holds it tightly, demanding Peter's attention and getting it.

"Don't you dare." The fingers tighten, hard enough for Peter's skin to go white.

"Nathan -"

"Promise me, promise me you won't try. If you never do anything for me again, do that."

Peter is forced to look Nathan in the face and there's something that for a fraction of a second is almost terrified behind Nathan's eyes and it's such a shock that Peter finds himself nodding, _desperately_ nodding.

"Ok, ok I won't," and there's such a sick sense of relief behind the words that it makes him feel more than a little ashamed.

***  


  


When Peter opens the door to Adam's room the first thing he sees is red.

The normally white sheets that cover Adam are now a red ruin, like the colour has literally erupted and fallen down on them.

"Oh my -"

Peter stumbles through the doorway in one movement, then all the way to the bed. Adam's arm is bright and wet from the elbow down, dotted with crimson all the way to his shoulder. It's blood, blood _everywhere_. The sheets are absorbing the weight of it in a rapidly spreading stain. There's no one in here, no one but Adam, no one but Adam laying still and red, clean skin still a shocked pale against the white and the red.

Peter checks his pulse, finds it quick and alive, and for a moment _that_ is stunning enough.

But there's something other than blood on the skin.

When he turns it he finds the quickly fading impression of teeth marks - Peter drops Adam's arm and takes a clattering step back.

For a long horrible moment all that he can hear is the whistling, muffled thump of his own heartbeat. He's sweating cold and he's either going to throw up or pass out if he doesn't. He sits down on the floor with a thud, tips his head forward and breathes, slow deep breaths that sound ridiculous but make the world gradually slide back into place. He can hear the quiet of the room again, swallowing thickly, he feels cold and he can feel everything sliding helplessly into wrong. He doesn't know what to do, he doesn't have a clue what to do.

He snatches the clock off of the bedside table and hurls it across the room, it smashes on the opposite wall and shatters into a hundred pieces, leaves a gruesome dent and a jagged scratch in the plaster. The pieces rain down, settle in the carpet, sprayed across the chair and the dresser.

He tips his head back against the bed, and his breath shakes out of him.

"I hate you," Peter says softly, though it's a lie, a ragged awful lie. Peter hates what Adam did, hates the way this is happening, hates the way it makes him feel, hates the creeping awful feeling that this is going wrong and there's already nothing left of Adam to save.

And he hates Hiro, for not knowing what a truly horrible thing he'd done.

"You're a fucking mess." Peter adds, and drags hands through his hair. He grits his teeth, swallows a lump, then another, and then he just doesn't bother. He lets it sit there at the back of his throat.

Because, in all the ways that matter, Adam is still in the ground.

***  


  


Nathan says nothing for a long time, he just lets Peter stare out of the back window, holding his own elbow and frowning at the rapidly darkening sky. He stands behind Peter though, not moving to do anything, not distracting himself with paperwork, he's just waiting, waiting for Peter to speak. And just like that Peter needs to fill the silence with something.

"I don't know what to do," he admits.

There's a pause, like Nathan hasn't been holding in words the whole time, like he didn't know exactly what Peter was going to say.

"You could tie him down," Nathan offers, and his voice isn't hard.

"No," Peter says roughly. "God no, I couldn't."

Nathan drifts closer, leans against the window next to him, and it has to be freezing through the material of his shirt.

"Self-mutilation, even on someone that can re-grow their own limbs, is not a healthy sign," Nathan says softly. He's not looking at him he's looking at the glass.

Peter rubs his face.

"I know," he admits and his voice is suddenly furious, there are a million things he wants to say but he can't, because half of them he doesn't know how to phrase and the other half, Jesus, the other half Nathan would chew him out for so damn hard. "Don't you think I know that. We can't even imagine Nathan, don't you get that, we saw but we can't imagine." His voice is too loud, he's vibrating and he doesn't even know whether he's angry or upset. He knows he can't afford to lose control like this but how can anyone stay calm, how can he not be furious about how useless this makes him feel.

"No," Nathan says simply. "I think you're imagining too hard. You can't change it and it's not your fault, and if you can't bring him back that won't be your fault either. You have to realise that and you have to accept that."

"How can you make that sound so easy?"

"Peter you're doing this to yourself. You never prepare yourself for the worst you let everything in, you let everything get under your skin."

"I kind of think that's how I work," Peter points out.

"You've never been able to distance yourself but you have to do it with this. It's too much, it's too deep. You cannot let yourself fall in."

Peter knows he's right, he knows it because he doesn't want to be inside it. He doesn't want to think too much about it because he doesn't think he _is_ that strong. And if Adam is going to be reachable it's going to be from this side.

***  


  


The sheets are clean again, Adam is clean again, it's like nothing happened.

All that's left is the blood under Peter's fingernails.

He's thrown the sheets in the trash, and one of the pillows, unsalvageable.

Which is a brutal word that Peter can't help but turn over and over in his head. It's not the sort of word that should ever be used to describe a person. It's too cold, too distant, too hopeless.

He absolutely refuses to use it where Adam's concerned.

***  


  


It's quiet downstairs, Peter can hear the creak and shift of the house over the sound of pencils on paper. He's drawing a landscape, just to be safe, no people in it. Nothing happening in the background, no weather, just a landscape. He doesn't think he could handle anything ridiculously prophetic at the moment.

He's taken a break from wandering around Adam's room like he's a ghost. Because that's what it is now, not his room, it's Adam's room.

He listens to the clatters and thumps that suggest Nathan has just come in through the front door, he puts his feet up on the end of the couch, finishes the edge of a tree and waits for him to appear.

"How did it go?" Peter asks when Nathan is a shape in the door frame.

"It's nice the way people are still surprised I'm not dead," Nathan says, and there's a thin thread of sarcastic humour under the words.

"That's what you get when you suddenly stop being famous," Peter points out helpfully.

He stops drawing and swivels round completely.

"What does Matt think?"

"He thinks you're insane, and this is Parkman we're talking about here, fountain of human kindness." Nathan steps into the room. "But he understands why?"

"Did you tell him how we found him?"

"I didn't have to," Nathan says pointedly. "And that will teach him to read people's thoughts when he's not sure what he's going to find."

Nathan slides into the chair opposite him.

Peter looks up, frowns. "You never ask me if there's any change."

"I never expect there to be," Nathan says honestly. "And I know you'll tell me, and I won't just one day find him randomly wandering the kitchen like some damn vampire"

Peter lets the sketchpad he's been doodling in slide down his lap.

"You make it sound like he's some sort of school project."

"Isn't he?"

The question is asked so quickly that Peter is angry before he even realises it.

"Don't be an asshole."

Nathan just looks at him.

"It's not an experiment for gods sake, it's not something I'm doing because I have nothing better to do."

"Maybe a little experimenting might help the situation."

Peter flings his pencil down on the table.

"You have a suggestion?"

"Well for a start maybe you shouldn't leave him lying flat on his back, maybe you should move him."

"He's not a doll," Peter says hotly.

_He's doing a pretty good impression of one_

"I heard that."

Nathan doesn't even bother to be offended.

"All I'm saying is that it can't help to be laying there staring at the fucking ceiling."

The words hit a nerve, something still raw and angry, Peter throws the pad he's still holding down and drags himself off the couch.

"Then you try," he says harshly. "Do whatever the hell you want."

He slams the door behind him.

***  


  


Peter knows he should eat something. He knows theoretically that he's leaving himself hungry as some sort of punishment, he's not stupid. But it's been a bad day. He's in an untidy sprawl on the end of Adam's bed, back braced on the metal end. The chair he normally sits in is upended at the other end of the room.

One of the legs is two feet away from it, and Peter isn't sorry at all about the fact that he's actually broken something.

Adam has no opinion on the broken chair whatsoever, which isn't a surprise.

"I'm trying," Peter says quietly. "I'm trying but you have to give me something, Adam, or I'm just wandering around in the dark."

He leans back on his hands and stares at Adam, and for the first time he's actually angry at him. Because Adam is the one who has all the plans, Adam is the scheming, manipulative one, who's spent decades learning how to make people do what he wants. And now he's just laying there doing nothing and it's not helpful at all and how is Peter supposed to change that?

How the hell do you bring someone back from that?

He promised Nathan he wouldn't go inside Adam's head and he won't, he honestly doesn't want to. He doesn't want to know what's in there because he thinks if it's bad, if it's all twisted up then he thinks he might lose faith completely that Adam is ever coming back. People say that sitting around and waiting is the hardest part, and it's true.

"You brought me all the way here, your screwed-up, demented plans put you in the ground, and I got you out. The least you could give me is a little gratitude."

Peter glares at him, which manages nothing but to make him feel like an idiot.

"I'd settle for an insult," he says weakly.

There's a long quiet second where nothing moves.

"I'll bet you've used people your whole life, and now the one time -" Peter fists his hand in the sheet, swallows, because he doesn't want to shout in here, he doesn't want to be angry in here. "The one time you have to rely on someone, the one time, you give up. And Nathan thinks I shouldn't be leaving you there, like you're dead already. Nathan thinks I should drag you back kicking and screaming if necessary."

Peter can't help laughing at that, and he doesn't even know why.

"It's what he'd do for me."

Because he would, Peter knows he would, and that hurts in a way he wouldn't change for the world.

"And I've decided he's probably right. So you're not getting an easy ride anymore, if I have to drag you out of this bed and leave you in the damn rain you're coming back."

He's talking to the curve of Adam's face, pale but shadowed in the dimness of the room, and Peter is suddenly sick of it. He pushes himself off of the bed and strides over to the window.

"No more laying in the dark," he says roughly, and drags the curtains open.

***  


  


Peter has been staring out of the kitchen window again.

He doesn't even notice Nathan come up behind him until he puts a hand on his shoulder.

"You look exhausted,"

"I feel exhausted," Peter admits, and judging by the pause even Nathan is surprised that he's actually admitted it. He takes a deep breath that doesn't manage to shift any of the weight across his shoulders and then lets it all fall out again.

"Go to bed," Nathan says roughly. "I'll watch Adam for a while."

Peter doesn't protest, he thinks staring at a ceiling of his own will make a nice change.

"He doesn't like you much you know." He feels duty bound to tell him.

"Well then it'll be a nice change for him," Nathan points out.

Peter lays a hand on the edge of Nathan's arm on his way past.

***  


  


Nathan's already clattering about downstairs again when Peter gets up, but the clattering has stopped by the time he gets out of the bathroom, and he leaves his hair to drip along the landing while he goes to collect new towels.

A few droplets of water never ruined anyone's carpet, no matter what his mom says.

Before heading downstairs he'll swing into Adam's room, just to check.

He pushes the door open and stops in the threshold. The towels take a sliding tumble out of his hands.

Adam's sitting up.

He's folded awkwardly upright. The pillows have tumbled away behind him, one has fallen from the bed entirely. The sheets are pooled in Adam's lap and he's staring at them like he doesn't know what they are. Like he doesn't know why they're there. Then he drags a long, shuddering breath and squeezes his eyes shut. Peter takes a faltering step forward, watches Adam's fingers very slowly drift across the pale whiteness of the sheets. He sways sickly from side to side, not even attempting to catch himself on his hands.

His eyes may be shut but Peter can still see movement under the lids. He takes two more steps, not even daring to breathe, hands held out by his sides. He reaches the bed and very carefully settles his hand on the end of it. His mouth feels bone dry and useless but he needs to speak, he has to speak.

"Adam?" Peter tries softly.

Adam jerks all the way back in one movement. The headboard cracks into the wall, followed closely by Adam's head. He topples forward onto his hands, briefly stunned. But the fact that Adam has reacted to him, that he's here, and he knows Peter's here. It's something Peter grabs with both hands. He moves close enough that he can feel the quick flare of Adam's breath against his face. Not steady now, using up air at a frightening rate, and Peter thinks that maybe that's something he hasn't been able to do for a long time.

"Adam." Peter settles a knee on the bed.

His eyes are still shut, and Peter doesn't know what he's blocking out, what he doesn't want to see. Because if it's the fact that Peter's real....

"Adam can you hear me?"

"Go away," Adam says thickly, his voice is strange, helplessly slurred and too quiet, he flinches under the sound of it, sways slightly, hands buried in the white sheets.

"You're not in the ground."

Adam rolls his head away from Peter's voice.

"Shut up," he says quietly, his fingers crumple little pieces of sheet, over and over.

"Adam you're not in the ground."

"Shut up," he says again, swallowing in ragged, sharp little movements that make his throat look narrow and fragile.

"Adam?"

"Shut up!" He lashes out with an arm and Peter catches it. And this time it's not cold and covered with blood and gore, it's smooth, and warm, and twisting under Peter's fingers. Twitching like it's in pain.

"Don't." Adam's voice is rough and horrible.

"Open your eyes," Peter says simply, and Adam makes a wounded noise like it's the cruelest command he could ever have given.

"No." Adam pulls his arm back but Peter catches his fingers, catches them and doesn't let them go.

"Will you trust me for once," Peter demands.

Adam opens his eyes.

He looks at him, and sees him, and there's some sort of horrible mixture of confusion and horror behind his eyes. Then there's a slow, shocked breath, it's caught and held for a long beat, and then Adam is shivering, shivering and taking huge, ragged breaths that sound like they might break him open. Peter doesn't let go of his hand, doesn't move from the edge of the bed. His heart is slamming inside his chest, and he's trying so hard to keep his voice calm, to keep it slow that it's shaking.

"We dug you out of the ground," he says quietly. "We dug you out of the ground twelve days ago, you're in New York."

Adam sways forward and Peter catches him. He's a sharp weight against Peter's shoulder, forehead resting against his cheek. There's a quiet breathy noise that ghosts over Peter's skin, and it takes him a second to realise what it is. Adam is laughing, a thin reedy noise that has nothing to do with amusement. It's a horrible noise, but it doesn't last very long.

The noises that come after it are worse.


End file.
